Rep. Blackburn: I’d love to go skeet shooting with the president — I bet I’d beat him

Erika JohnsenPosted at 11:31 am on January 29, 2013

I hope President Obama didn’t think he’d be able to make such a shameless pander and get away with it completely unchallenged. President Eisenhower originally installed the skeet shooting range at Camp David, and of the time he does spend at the presidential retreat, no doubt President Obama has checked it out once or twice — but an “all the time” aficionado? Let’s be real.

Hey, Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn has an idea — if the president is a skeet-shooting fan, why not host a bipartisan group of lawmakers at Camp David, and kill two birds (pun alert!) with one stone? It would provide an opportunity for some positive PR in terms of both across-the-aisle outreach and quelling Second-Amendment enthusiasts’ fears that Obama might be an anti-gun zealot? And if the “fact” that the president enjoys skeet shooting really is so very trivial to the overall gun debate we’re having, why did he bother mentioning it at all?

“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why hasn’t he referenced this at any point in time?” Blackburn said on CNN on Monday night. …

She added: “I tell you what I do think — I think he should invite me to Camp David, and I’ll go skeet shooting with him and I bet I’ll beat him.” …

Blackburn was back on CNN Tuesday to again reiterate her challenge.

“I would think that if the president says that he’s been skeet shooting, I would like to know with what regularity he is out there shooting those clay pigeons,” she said.

“I want to know if he’s shooting with a 12-gauge or a 20-gauge; I prefer a 20-gauge,” she said.

Sadly, even the president’s preferred outdoor leisure activity of golf is most often reserved for a close-knit group of White House advisors and friends rather than political shmoozefests. Ah, well.